May 18, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 12, 1429

SRINAGAR, May 17: Indian troops shot dead six militants on Saturday in a gunbattle that broke out in Tral area, about 40km south of occupied Srinagar, officials said.

The incident took place ahead of Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s visit to Pakistan for a review of a four-year-old peace process between the two countries.

“The encounter started after an armed militant group ambushed a security force vehicle,” army spokesman Lt-Col A. K. Mathur said. “Six militants have been killed.”

Another report quoted Mathur as saying the clash began after troops and police sealed off a forested area near Lurgam following a tip that militants were hiding there. Lurgam is situated 50km south of Srinagar.

He said the militants belonged to the Jaish-i-Mohammad group, which authorities blame for a number of attacks, including one on the Indian parliament in 2001.

With the area still sealed off, there was no independent confirmation of the incident and no immediate comment from the militant group.

Another army spokesman Lt-Col Manjinder Singh called the deaths a “major setback” to militants fighting New Delhi’s occupation of Kashmir.

“The militants were killed during fierce fighting in the Tral area,” Faisal Qayoom, senior district police officer, said.

“Men from the army, police and paramilitary were involved in the fighting that started early in the morning on Saturday after troops ringed the area on a tip-off,” Qayoom said.

Separately, six people were injured on Saturday in an explosion in a policeman’s house in Neel village, 120km south of Srinagar, director-general of police Hemant Lohia said.

Lohia said police were investigating whether the explosion had been triggered by the militants.

Jaish-i-Mohammad is one of more than a dozen groups fighting for either independence from India or a union with Pakistan.

—Agencies